The Christians of Caichong

Description

Caichong, a small village in the province of Guizhou, in Southern China. An ordinary morning lies ahead of us. The village wakes up. Inhabitants bustle about. They have breakfast, wash their clothes or go to the market, while some families get ready to go to church. The latter woke up earlier and are dressed in their finery. In front of the church, which looks quite banal unlike what we are used to find in Europe, a man pulls out a bunch of keys and opens the door. He starts to pray in the quietness that he knows to be ephemeral. Indeed, people are already arriving. They chat and then go into the church to pray and sing. Upstairs, children take their music lesson or listen to stories told by volunteers seriously dedicated to the mission of transmitting which has been entrusted to them. The day at the parish has definitely started In a country where the government seems to restrict the development of religions in general and, in some cases, resort to persecution of the faithful, the young Christian community has nonetheless decided to build its own church and keep it alive. Their activities will keep on growing denser because two months before Christmas, everybody gets together and already discusses the preparations for this event, which of course has its origins in the Western world and was imported with Christianity, but which now coexists with the traditional Chinese New Year. We shall follow the daily life of three Christian families of different social backgrounds and watch them prepare the celebration of these two events, with fervour and joy.